My wife Jeanne and I have been enjoying “The Chosen,” a multi-year cinematic life of Jesus that just released the fourth episode of its second season. I’ve seen on Facebook that its creators have been getting lots of raves, but also some serious pushback from conservative Christian elements. I have not made a study of these comments (which would require far too much time on social media), but the gist of those I’ve seen is that “The Chosen” is to... Read more
It is a reminder of the world we have been living in for more than a year that the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics will begin on July 23, 2021–delayed for a year by Covid-19. A disturbingly common mishap in recent Summer Olympic games has been the failure of U.S. track and field relay teams. Individually, these teams almost always are made up of the best runners, top to bottom, of any nation’s relay contingent. Best times, best individual win-loss records.... Read more
“What’s the difference between chili con carne and chili con queso?” I ask my freshman students. “One is chili with meat, the other is chili with cheese,” they reply, wanting to know why I would ask a stupid question with such an obvious answer in the middle of a class on the Gospel of Luke. As I often do, I give them a quick lesson in etymology (because, as I have told them many times, words are cool). “The Latin... Read more
I once learned something interesting about giraffes from one of my colleagues. He was lecturing on Roman art and architecture; when discussing the Coliseum, he mentioned that Roman audiences loved to watch novelty battles—between a woman and a dwarf, or a dog and a porcupine for instance. The voracious Roman appetite for more and more exotic beasts and contests produced a variety of combatants from all corners of the empire, including elephants, apes, the great cats, and rhinoceroses. And giraffes.... Read more
Over the past few weeks, I have received more negative comments on my blog than usual. Most of them have been posted on my blog’s Facebook page rather than on the blog itself; this is undoubtedly because when I pay a few bucks to promote a post on Facebook, it goes more people than the choir that I am usually preaching to. Most of these comments are negatively energized by the (correct) perception that this site, callled “Freelance Christianity,” represents... Read more
“Remember K from our colloquium last year?” my teaching partner emailed late last week. “G [a student in our colloquium this year] is K’s roommate; G tells me that K got a ‘Survival is Insufficient’ tattoo!” The subject line of the email was “Education leaves a mark!” Let me explain. We are in the last week of my “Apocalypse” colloquium; our final text is Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel Station Eleven. Thanks to the tireless efforts of my teaching... Read more
After the mass shooting in a Colorado grocery store a few weeks ago, a woman on Twitter posted this: I’ve got to go to the grocery store today. The store has 1 front entrance, & 1 exit out the back. If a shooter came in, I might not be able to escape, & I’m scared to go. Does this mean I need therapy? Or am I an American accepting the reality of mass shootings? Several hundred people responded, the vast... Read more
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. Shakespeare, King Lear Last week, in the “Apocalypse” colloquium that I am team-teaching with a colleague from the English department this semester, one of our texts was Shakespeare’s King Lear. My colleague and I have taught this course each spring for the past four years. As we have tweaked and fine-tuned it, we have remained convinced that this particular play belongs on the syllabus–but why? We’ve read fiction and essays, viewed... Read more
A Polish Franciscan priest. A Lutheran pastor and theologian. A French, Jewish social activist attracted to Marxism. An agnostic French novelist and philosopher. A group of young German college students. The citizens of an isolated rural town in France. What do the above persons have in common? In unique and profound ways, Maximilian Kolbe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Simone Weil, Albert Camus, the members of the White Rose, and the people of Le Chambon were witnesses to the power of the human... Read more
Either the Bible is true or it isn’t, either it’s God’s inspired inerrant word or it isn’t, you can’t have it both ways, you can’t pick and choose to fit with whatever the latest fad or zeitgeist happens to be . . . So claimed someone in a comment thread on a Patheos Progressive Christian Facebook page post recently. One thing I’ll say for Bible literalists: they aren’t a big fan of nuance. They like their truth to be .... Read more
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